Riot at low-income suburb follows boy's crash while fleeing police

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PARIS — About 40 rioters in a Paris suburb hurled Molotov cocktails at police and firefighters and torched cars in a rampage prompted by the death of a teen pizza deliverer fleeing police. The interior minister called Monday for calm after the overnight violence.

One person fired at police with a handgun in the rioting in a housing project in Bagnolet, on Paris' eastern edge, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said. No injuries were reported.

The latest eruption of tensions in France's suburbs broke out after an 18-year-old riding his motorcycle through the project tried to flee a document check by police, according to a police official.

The man, who worked as a pizza deliverer, lost control of the vehicle and hit a barrier, and died en route to the hospital, the official said. The official was not authorized to be named publicly because of police policy.

Later Sunday night, about 40 young people in the neighborhood began hurling Molotov cocktails and other projectiles at police and emergency workers on the scene, Hortefeux's office said in a statement.

Set fire to carsThe rioters set fire to 29 cars and smashed windows of a high school and store, the statement said. One person was detained and order was restored after police reinforcements arrived.

Hortefeux called for calm and insisted that "all light will be shed" on the cause of the young man's death. An autopsy was scheduled.

The police's internal watchdog agency is also investigating. The police official said the victim's motorcycle did not come into contact with any police vehicles.

Hortefeux said he also would convene a meeting Aug. 31 with the top government officials in charge of urban and youth policies and neighborhood associations to try to "establish a peaceful dialogue" in violence-stricken suburbs.

Tensions between young people and police have long simmered in housing projects in France's suburbs, feeding on poverty, unemployment and anger over discrimination against minority groups. The suburbs were engulfed by rioting in 2005, largely by young Arab and black men of immigrant backgrounds, after two teens were electrocuted in a power station while hiding from police. Those riots spread nationwide.

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